The present invention relates to a functional yarn equipped with semiconductor functional elements, and in particular relates to such a functional yarn that includes a plurality of semiconductor functional elements which are formed as granules, and a pair of conducting wires that are flexible and to which the plurality of semiconductor functional elements are connected in parallel.
In the prior art, in the field of manufactured textile products, a manufactured textile (i.e. a built-up mass made from textile) has been proposed to which are attached semiconductor functional elements of various types having a function of light reception or a function of light emission. In this type of manufactured textile with attached semiconductor functional elements, for example, functional yarns in the form of cords on which are mounted a plurality of semiconductor functional elements (solar cells, light emitting diodes, bypass diodes, or the like) are used as warp or weft and a plurality of conducting wires or insulating wires are used as weft or warp, and these are woven or braided together.
However, there has been the problem with the functional yarn equipped with semiconductor functional elements described above that, due to tension being applied to the wire members before processing into a textile, or due to distortion or deformation stress on the manufactured textile after processing into a textile, it may become impossible for the light reception function or the light emission function of the semiconductor functional elements to be manifested, because the pairs of conducting wires of the functional yarns equipped with semiconductor functional elements may undesirably come into mutual contact, thus causing an electrical short circuit.
Thus, in order to solve the problem described above, for example, in JP Patent 5,138,976 there is disclosed a functional yarn equipped with semiconductor functional elements in which a plurality of semiconductor functional elements formed as granules having positive and negative electrodes at their opposite ends are sandwiched between a pair of conducting wires to which they are electrically connected in parallel, and these semiconductor functional elements and the pair of conducting wires are completely embedded in flexible transparent synthetic resin, with the cross section of the resulting product being circular.